


Platinum Membership

by FollyOfWinchester



Series: Beat It on Extreme [2]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: BECAUSE THEY DESERVE IT GODDAMNIT, Canon Compliant...ish..., Dubious Science, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Kissing, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Reconciliation, Recovery, Terminal Illnesses, The author is definitely not a biologist..., post-MGS4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 12:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4960627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FollyOfWinchester/pseuds/FollyOfWinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hal refuses to move on. Set some time after the events of MGS4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Platinum Membership

**Author's Note:**

> I am a chemical engineer by training and did my Master's thesis on synthetic gene circuits, but I just want to make 100% clear that neither of those things qualifies me to know anything about telomeres. I made it all up with some help from Wikipedia, but considering the dubious nature of the canonical science in the MGS series, I hope you'll suspend your disbelief just for a bit and enjoy the story. :3
> 
> I don't own any of this stuff, unless some of it accidentally ends up being true. Then I expect to be contacted for the patent and you damn well better believe I'm gonna be profiting monetarily!

A call alert pops up on one of Hal's monitors and he eyes it warily for a moment before his features brighten in excitement. _Finally!_ Hal picks up the call and hears the British accent of the woman on the other end as she greets him.

"Hello, Dr. Pliskin?"

"Yes, Dr. Malden, good morning...or afternoon for you, I guess. Anyway, do you have something?"

"Yes, in fact. I have quite a lot. Your hunch about telomere involvement in your brother's condition was spot on. Initially, the cells appeared to have shorter telomeres than those you would expect in a 43-year-old man. However, something seemed odd in the results, as though the telomeres were, in fact, longer, but unavailable for their usual functions within the cells—"

Hal waits with bated breath as Dr. Malden's dictation is interrupted by the sounds of her taking a swallow of some liquid. He dissipates his nervous energy by overanalyzing her pause. _Probably coffee or tea, sounds like she's drinking out of a mug. So she's tired already. Tired and frustrated because it's another dead end. Dave doesn't have time for any more dead ends._ His left leg starts to shake beneath his palm.

Just as Hal thinks he's going to explode, Dr. Malden picks her explanation back up, "So, I investigated further, performed a few tests just to be sure, and found something incredible. The telomeres of these cells are bound up in a kind of protein shielding which artificially shortens them, sending the cells into a premature senescence and consequently mimicking something akin to Werner syndrome in the organism, in this case your brother, who appears about 25 years older than he actually is. I've honestly never seen this kind of mutation. It seems...unimaginable, in a way, that such a thing could happen as a birth defect by random chance. Remind me, Dr. Pliskin, you are certain that your adopted brother's ancestry is untraceable? It would be quite helpful to know of any similar mutations in his genetic history."

Hal stiffens. The whole "adopted brother" cover for him to see all of Dave's medical records was flimsy at best...and he would have preferred a different familial relationship to fake, namely "husband," but...well...that was never going to happen. Dave had made it quite clear that unless Hal could somehow find a cure for dying, he had to get over their partnership being anything more than bachelor co-parents/roommates, so, "No, we really have no records of his birth parents and the, uh, orphanage...burned down...so...yeah, no records."

"Pity. Well, I can't promise anything, but if you could get me another sample, I have a colleague who specializes in telomere-binding proteins whom I would like to contact."

~*~

Several months later, Hal's monitor blinks at him with an incoming call from the number he's been watching for. _This must be Dr. Malden's colleague!_ The waiting has been torturous and, while she always sounds hopeful, Dr. Malden has done little to convince him that there is anything they will be able to do for Dave in any reasonable amount of time. The exuberant man on the other end snaps him back to the present and makes him turn his speakers down. 

"Dr. Pliskin, greetings! So glad to finally be speaking with you directly!"

"Hello, Dr. Rodriguez! Dr. Malden tells me you've made some progress?"

"Oh, and then some! Your brother's condition is...well...I've never seen anything like it before. It's like someone purposefully engineered his cells to peak at age 35 or so and then go into a rapid decline. He has an extra gene encoding for a never-before-seen telomere-binding protein that inhibits telomere function and brings about a premature aging process. Genetic mutations resulting in any sort of telomere shortening would likely result in unviable offspring, BUT, in your brother's case, the telomeres are completely intact!" Dr. Rodriguez clicks his tongue thoughtfully, "Imagine someone wrapped up tightly in a blanket with only their head and feet exposed. We wouldn't say that person is shorter, just that they are trapped, unable to function. Unwrap them and they can go about their business as normal. Well, the same is true for your brother's telomeres! The chances of this mutation occurring randomly in nature are simply astronomical! Perhaps one in one trillion! One in several trillion, even! We have no hope of removing the gene encoding for the novel telomere-binding protein from your brother's DNA on a timescale that would save his life, but there is hope in uncovering the telomere from under its protein prison. A strangely large amount of hope."

Hal grips the edge of his chair and tries not to let the lightness of the scientist's voice build him up too much. He's heard about supposed hope before, only to have said hope dashed painfully against the rocky coast of reality. He opts for a hedged "Oh?" in response.

"Yes, because the strangest thing is, the new telomere-binding protein, which we're naming the 'Pliskin Complex,' by the way...it has an almost _machine-like_ structure. That's why I say, if I didn't know better, his cells appear engineered to function in this fashion. Like any machine, this protein has an on-off switch, in this case an active site that accepts metal ions to unfold and decouple the complex from the telomere. Unfortunately for your brother—"

Hal sucks in and holds his breath. What is he about to be told? That the metal is poisonous? Radioactive? Only found in the center of Jupiter?

"Oh, Dr. Pliskin, forgive me! I am making a joke in an inopportune moment! What I was going to say is this metal ion happens to be platinum, which will be quite an expensive lifelong treatment and may have as yet unknown side effects, but for 30 or 40 more years of life it is a small price to pay!"

Unsure if he heard correctly, Hal blinks a few times, "What? Really?"

"Yes! In fact, we can start with a slight modification to a drug like Carboplatin, which we could have ready in a matter of weeks! This is amazing, groundbreaking! Your brother could actually be the first person to recover from _aging_ , Dr. Pliskin! If only we were all so lucky!"

~*~

"Here."

"What's this?"

"A present."

A frustrated grunt, "I thought I asked you to stop with the research, Hal. You've got to move on—"

 _Move on? He says it like I haven't even tried. Like I haven't_ been _trying._ Hal waves his hand in front of his face, "I don't want to hear it. Either take the damn thing or I'll jab you with it myself."

Dave sighs and holds out his prematurely wrinkled hand, "Okay, what sort of 'present' is it this time?"

Hal deposits the syringe onto Dave's open palm, "The kind of present that is completely experimental. You'll get another one every month."

"Hal, seriously. What the hell is in this thing?"

"Mostly platinum, or so I'm told. Please, just...don't ask too many questions or I'm gonna chicken out right along with you. Just...just trust me, okay?"

Dave turns the syringe over in his hands, "If this is some of that New Age, 'get happy quick' crap then—"

"It shouldn't have any effect on your mental state. Come on, Dave. Do it for me, and for Sunny."

A determined frown sets into Dave's features. He breaths deeply in and out through his nose before resting a hand on Hal's shoulder and squeezing gently, "Alright."

~*~

"Hal! Get in here!"

Hal gets up from his computer and goes running in the direction of Dave's voice. He finds him parting his hair in front of the bathroom mirror.

"Look! Look at this! Am I going senile or are some of my hairs coming in brown?"

Hal's eyes widen in surprise. Sure enough, in the same way that the gray had first started to appear, little dark strands are now visible here and there among the forest of their pigmentless peers.

"Is this..." Dave fluffs a hand through his hair and turns to face Hal directly, "This is really happening, isn't it? You really found something this time."

Hal just nods. They stare intensely at each other for a moment, and in that moment Hal decides he's gone on his last "get over Dave" date.

"Thanks," Dave smirks, "For ignoring me."

Hal smiles back. The expression feels somewhat alien on his face, and the sensation just makes him smile that much wider, "No problem. Anytime!"

~*~

It happens the morning they receive the fourteenth shipment of platinum-laden liquid. 

Hal flicks the side of the syringe in his hand and pushes the plunger just enough to remove the pocket of air that has collected at the tip when something out of the ordinary catches his eye. A large cardboard box that wasn't there a moment before is sitting on the floor behind him. As soon as he starts to turn around, Dave (unsurprisingly) bursts out from under the box with a triumphant "Ha!" and stands posing, arms akimbo.

Dave's mostly brown hair hangs majestically in the quasi-mullet he'd insisted on growing after the color change began. His bandana drapes over his shoulder where it catches on the texture of his old sneaking suit, the one he'd worn during the Big Shell Incident. Aside from the gray at Dave's temples and the scar tissue across the left side of his face, they could have been preparing for a mission as fellow Philanthropists in the early days of their partnership. Just replace the drug with an injection of nanomachines and you'd have it. He's every bit the legendary "Solid Snake" Hal remembers and he looks completely and utterly irresistible.

"Wow," is all Hal manages as Dave saunters over with a graceful kind of haughtiness.

"I know, right? All thanks to you and your stubbornness," Dave reaches toward the syringe and Hal offers it in his direction. Dave effortlessly injects the drug into his neck without even batting an eye and hands the syringe back to Hal, "Thanks."

"My pleasure. Don't mention it," Hal can't stop himself from blushing at his choice of words, so he looks down at his feet, but he can feel Dave's eyes on him anyway. They'd been dancing around each other for the past few months, not sure what anything meant anymore. Now, faced with a vision of the man he had come to love without the looming scythe of mortality bearing down on him, Hal couldn't handle not knowing anymore. How much time did they have now? Could they recover from the distance they'd built up between them? Did they still feel the same way about one another? The enormity of the questions overwhelms him and he shifts nervously toward the counter with the vague intention of cleaning away the remnants of the drug shipment as a distraction.

Dave catches Hal's wrist as he begins to move away, "Otacon?"

It's a question that answers questions and Hal lets hope blossom in his chest. He doesn't meet Dave's eyes, but a smile plays at the corners of his mouth, "I-I thought we agreed, no codenames during sex. It...it m-makes concentrating during missions a lot...harder."

Dave lets out a groan and pulls Hal against him. As their lips meet for the first time in years, the dam breaks on all the longing and want Hal had tamped down every time he left for another meaningless date or every time he caught Dave sneaking a sorrowful but heated glance in his direction. He fists his hand in Dave's hair, yanks his head to the side, and proceeds to nearly suck Dave's tongue out of his mouth. Dave arches into him and scrambles for purchase, digging his fingers into the skin just above Hal's hipbones. Without the cigarettes, Dave tastes like coffee and smells like winter. Hal stops his assault of Dave's mouth just long enough to pant three words against his cheek.

"I missed you."

"Marry me," comes Dave's gravelly response right into his ear.

Stunned into a kind of frenzied silence, Hal manages to nod twice before they descend upon each other again, lips, hands, hips moving together as though they had never stopped.

 _As long as I can have this_ , Hal thinks, _however much time we have left, it'll be enough._


End file.
